Since I’m of the minority opinion that commodities markets are greatly effecting oil prices, to the benefit of a few large interests, and to the detriment of the American public and the overall economy, is it any surprise that when I emailed “my” congressman, Representative Trent Franks, (R, AZ), about this subject, I got back a canned, conservative crafted, pro big oil, blame the Arabs, and drill in Alaska response. `No surprise whatsoever. That, I guess, is why we live in a democracy, so next time I can vote this guy out (I didn’t vote him in to begin with). So far it hasn’t worked. But, the larger issue is, of course, who’s more correct on this issue, me or Franks.

In part, it’s a numbers game. That is, I think I might be right on the particulars of this in the short term, and that Rep Trent might actually have a claim to some part of the truth in the long term, his being that global oil demand is out pacing supply. But is that true right now as much as it will be true in the future? At $4 plus a gallon gas, Americans, who use 25% of the world’s oil supply, are simply driving less this summer then in years past. I’ve heard it said (and it’s an easy thing to say) that “the world oil market is so large and complex that it is difficult to accurately know where supply and demand are at any one time”. In other words, you can pick data on oil production and inventories in any part of the globe and extrapolate that particular piece of the puzzle to represent the whole thing. And yet, the global price of oil, set on the NYMEX commodity exchange, is a global price. It seems to me, though I can’t prove it because I don’t have the kind of comprehensive information to do so, that Rep Trent has it wrong now, but is using a not too unreasonable conclusion about our future to justify the excesses of the present.

Trouble with that is that if he’s wrong on the details of this, can he, and the interests and ideologies he’s aligned with, be trusted to get it right in the long run? From my perspective, the answer is most likely no. That if his answer to the problems of the status quo is an expansion of those forces and interests, the ones that have led us to $147 a barrel oil, and a bedraggled economy, will we act soon enough and correctly enough to avoid $200 or even $300 a barrel oil in the not so distant future?

So, in opposition to the canned conservative response, let me start by saying that we need to reform the regulation of commodities markets. A good place to go for information on how to do this is the website of a group called Stop Oil Speculation Now, at www.stopoilspeculationnow.com. They have an email form for legislative agendas and actions that will help curb the ways in which commodity markets can be used to create bubbles, not only in oil and fuel, but also in food and other vital commodities.

This leads to the larger question of how to either expand the global oil supply for the future (the majority conservative view), and or create more efficient use of energy and more sustainable and renewable sources of energy, now and for the long term (the progressive view).

My position is based in two conditions I believe to be fact. The first one is that global warming is a reality, supported by a nearly indisputable majority of scientists and scientific data. And two, that if the world is to grow economically, as is the trend, there will never be enough fossil fuel to power that expansion, in the ways that we currently use energy. The second position, even if you disagree with my first conclusion, should be enough to make you conclude that we need to develop as many sources of sustainable energy as we can, as fast as we can, to avoid the economic squeeze, and international conflicts, that are built into the path we are on now.

Instead, the powers that be are guarding their interests closely, lest other sources of energy and or mass conservation take hold and put a dent in their profit statements. This is where we will have to wait for market forces to put an end to those interests, the way the mortgage crises has put an end to the sale and investment in shoddy mortgages, but look at what that approach has gotten us, hundreds of billion of dollars in losses, and a nearly ruined economy.

The lesson in all this is not just who’s right in particular now, but who’s right in general, in the long run, in the big picture, as to workable solutions. You see, it’s a package deal. In order to correct the problems at hand, and the ones that face us in the near and long term future, you have to start from a position of fairly clear understanding of current circumstances and then proceed to what that, and other information, is telling you about the trends, and only then, can you make reasonable plans to correct them. If you do otherwise, you may be right in particular, but very wrong in general.